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Saturday, December 02, 2006

Something from nothing?

Part of an ongoing exchange with an email correspondent. His remarks are in quotation marks:

“Are you saying that we should not assume the law of conservation is valid beyond the furthest point currently detectable by telescopes or radio telescopes?? (I assume that's what you mean by "observable".)”

We should not assume that the law of conservation is operable in a hypothetical alternative universe—seeing as we don’t have any empirical evidence regarding the existence of such a universe, much less its physical laws.

“Why would the validity of that law depend on the capacity of our instruments?”

Our knowledge of a natural law is limited to our observation of nature. A hypothetical alternative universe would be unobservable or indetectible even in principle.

“Mills is merely applying the law of conservation, stating that the law forbids something, i.e. ex nihilo creation.”

We’ve been over this ground before.

“Such extrapolation of a known law, and a fundamental one at that, seems far more sensible, and in keeping with the known facts about the universe, than the truly incredible leap that theists postulate with the notion of divine ex nihilo creation. I would argue the law of conservation, i.e. that you can't get something from nothing, is more fundamental than other laws.”

Two problems:

i) There’s nothing sensible about extrapolating from the only universe we know and know to exist to the physical conditions of a hypothetical alternative universe which is both unknown and unknowable.

ii) You keep speaking of creation ex nihilo as a “postulate.” There are both philosophical and scientific arguments for creation ex nihilo. For example:

“Unless you axiomatically posit a supernatural intervention whereby the mass-energy necessary to constitute our universe is placed into the "acorn" of the BB, it has to be assumed that the mass-energy for the BB was pre-existent in some way, whether it originated in a previous collapsed universe or a quantum vacuum fluctuation (more about this below) or was just inherent in the BB acorn.”

i) You’re oscillating between mass-energy and the law of conservation. These are not interchangeable concepts.

ii) You also toy with a number of different cosmological models in the course of your reply. So you argument, even if otherwise sound, would only be sound with reference to one (or more) out of several competing cosmological models.

iii) Creation ex nihilo does not entail a BB acorn.

“I think there is far more reason to believe the law of conservation would apply to the acorn (i.e. to mass-energy compressed into an ultra-dense point) than any supernatural explanation.”

Why?

“In other words, to show that God created the universe ex nihilo through the BB, you have to axiomatically posit the existence of God to start with.”

No, theistic arguments can work in either direction. You could begin with theistic arguments that independently establish the existence of God, and then redeploy that conclusion as a premise for creation ex nihilo—or you could marshal philosophical and scientific arguments for creation ex nihilo, and redeploy that conclusion as a premise for the existence of God.

“God created the universe because God exists. But you haven't proven the existence of God, you've just posited his existence -- you've just put him into the equation. A conjuring trick indeed!”

This gets to be a bit tedious. God is not merely a postulate. There are a variety of theistic arguments for the existence of God.

“If time as we know it was created with the BB, then the "raw materials" of the BB would have to be considered "timeless" until the t=0 moment when the BB started spewing them out in a rapidly transforming state (with energy being converted into particles of matter) creating a fast-expanding universe. That's what I meant.”

Which assumes that timeless matter/energy—matter/energy without duration, is a coherent concept.

But time is a fundamental property of physical objects as we observe them.

“But in recent years several theories have come out which question the idea that the BB was a singularity from which time began and propose that it was "not a boundary to spacetime but simply a phase through which the universe passes" (Sean Carroll and Jennifer Chen, University of Chicago.) http://pancake.uchicago.edu/~carroll/arrow.pdf”

Does this mean that you now retract your previous appeal to timeless matter/energy?

“This little survey shows that the classical timeless (or pre-time) BB singularity is not cast in stone, and that the possibilities of a universe prior to or encompassing our present universe are being seriously considered.”

There’s a basic difference between possibility and conceivability. To know that a hypothetical alternative universe is, indeed, possible, we would need to have a detailed knowledge of its physical structure. But we’re only scratching the surface of our own universe, much less a hypothetical, alternative universe.

“Gabriele Veneziano (CERN), a string theory pioneer, discusses two of the non-singularity theories in an article called "The Myth of the Beginning of Time", He concludes by saying that "at least two potentially testable theories plausibly hold that the universe--and therefore time--existed well before the big bang. If either scenario is right, the cosmos has always been in existence and, even if it recollapses one day, will never end." This would seem to preclude a singular divine creation event.”

A “potentially testable” theory is two steps removed from actual evidence for such a scenario. It is untested. And it is, at best, potentially testable. So it’s untested, and until it’s tested, it may not even be testable.

“They postulate infinite entropy, with new universes being created out of “empty” high entropy space – through quantum fluctuations – by new big bangs that continue the process of increasing entropy. This would also seem to preclude a Biblical creation event.”

Assuming, for the sake of argument (which I deny), that Christians postulate the existence of God, why is it illicit for Christians to postulate the existence of God due to its explanatory power in accounting for the origin of the universe, but it’s licit for a secular scientist to postulate a secular cosmology to do the same?

“Nevertheless, they show that it is possible to come up with scientifically plausible naturalistic explanations for the origin of our universe that don’t require leaping to the conclusion of a divine creator.”

A “potentially testable” theory doesn’t begin to “show” the actual possibility of a naturalistic explanation.

“This is acceptable, but when you posit a supernatural explanation, you're jumping the gun in a big way. You're short-circuiting science. Even if science doesn't have an explanation for something today, it could in 20, 50, 200 or 500 or 1000 years.”

You are now resorting to secular fideism. Your faith-commitment to the future of science.

“I don't see any justification for shutting the door on a scientific, naturalistic explanation.”

And you are now implicitly defining science in terms of methodological naturalism. But methodological naturalism is subject to formidable criticisms:

“Given that we're probably locked into our universe, and may never be able to go outside it (or peer outside it using various instruments), or into a black hole, we may never finally or conclusively solve the mystery of cosmic origin. In other words, there may be a naturalistic explanation, but we might not be able to discover it given physical limitations. But that still doesn't justify a supernatural explanation.”

Sorry, but this is secular fanaticism. Even if no naturalistic explanation will ever be available, naturalism is always preferable to supernaturalism!

“Positing God as an explanation only obscures things further: From where / out of what / how did God create the energy in the universe??”

Since that is not what creation ex nihilo implies, the question is miscast.

“I think the theories I've mentioned above try to tackle this issue. But while we may be able to explain the Big Bang, i.e. what gave our universe its start, we may have to take as an absolute given the existence of the underlying or preceding energy that permeates (or permeated) the pre-universe or multiverse.”

Take as “an absolute given.” More secular dogma. This is secular fundamentalism.

“Again, this is an extrapolation from something known.”

An extrapolation from something known what? You’re assuming that a hypothetical alternative universe would be analogous to our universe. If you already knew that, then you wouldn’t need to “extrapolate” from one to the other. The fact that you have having to extrapolate from one to the other betrays the fact that you don’t know the situation to be analogous, in which case the extrapolation is wholly unwarranted.

“In positing divine ex nihilo creation, you make a huge leap into the unknown without any solid basis.”

Into the unknown what?

“Any or all of them may turn out to be wrong. That's how science works. Delving into the origin (and future) of the universe is cutting-edge science which requires imagination and original thinking on the part of astrophysicists.”

If you have to appeal to “cutting-edge science,” then there’s no reason to have any confidence in cutting-edge science since today’s cutting-edge science is different from tomorrow’s cutting-edge science or yesterday’s cutting-edge science.

“See directly below for more details. But let me say here that the question of how God pulled off this trick is indeed the key question. If you evade this question, it means you simply want to impose a solution (God as the cause of the universe) without any justification, apart from your religious faith.”

Which disregards the philosophical and scientific arguments for creation ex nihilo.

“The universe and the Big Bang are known phenomena and science tries to explain their origin. In this case, the very feasibility of the action (i.e. creation ex nihilo) by the posited actor (God) determines whether that actor being the cause of the phenomena is a plausible hypothesis. To posit something as the cause, you have to give a plausible explanation of how the cause led to the effect. To say that Cause X caused Effect Y, without explaining how X caused Y makes the case of X being the cause rather flimsy. Wouldn't you agree?”

No, I don’t agree. For there is no agreed upon model of causality in the philosophical literature. Not even close.

http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/causation-metaphysics/

We don’t begin with a theory of causation. Rather, we begin with what we take to be contingent events, which we infer to be effects of *some* agency or agent.

The inference does not depend on having an off-the-shelf model of causality to work with.

“Regarding the statement that follows, Christopher Hitchens has said that "What can be asserted without proof can be dismissed without proof".

Which evinces his utterly ignorance of natural theology, philosophical theology, and Christian apologetics.

“As you concede, atheists don't have to disprove the existence of God, but certainly it's a good idea for them to explain how living things and the universe came into being and how they function and develop without God and why the concept of God is fundamentally flawed.”

No, it’s more than a good idea. It’s a burden of proof. The atheist, by virtue of his being an atheist, believes that a world without God is significantly different from a world with God (“God” as defined in Judeo-Christian terms).

Therefore, an atheist maintains that theism and atheism carry very different implications for reality. They are not equivalent descriptions of reality.

Hence, atheism has a burden of proof internal to atheism to exclude the implications of the alternative thesis. To show that the world is not the way it would be if God is real.

“If by "evidential parity" you mean parity in the amount of evidence for their existence, yes I don't think there's any more proof for the Christian God, than for Zeus, or for leprechauns. If you believe in the Christian God, then of course you think there's no parity. True, the Christian God is attributed with far more than are leprechauns. Leprechauns are not claimed to have created the universe or life on Earth or to be responsible for tsunamis or saving lives during tsunamis. So in that sense, it's true, there's no parity. The evidence base for God is far bigger, i.e. the amount of what is presented as evidence. But, for an atheist, all this purported evidence fails to prove the case.”

With all due respect, have you ever attempted to even *look* at some of the evidence? Here’s a bare sampling of some of the online material:

“Yes, there are indetectable phenomena which leave detectable effects, but these are all natural phenomena. God, as a supernatural entity, is not part of science -- far from it.”

Is this another appeal to methodological naturalism?

“I realize that a Christian apologist would use everything in the universe as evidence for God, but the argument from design has been rather thoroughly punctured by philosophers and scientists from David Hume to Dawkins.”

Even Thomas Nagel, a leading secular philosopher, had to take Dawkins to task for his inept misstatement of the design argument:

***QUOTE***

Let me first say something about this negative argument. It depends, I believe, on a misunderstanding of the conclusion of the argument from design, in its traditional sense as an argument for the existence of God. If the argument is supposed to show that a supremely adept and intelligent natural being, with a super-body and a super-brain, is responsible for the design and the creation of life on earth, then of course this "explanation" is no advance on the phenomenon to be explained: if the existence of plants, animals, and people requires explanation, then the existence of such a super-being would require explanation for exactly the same reason. But if we consider what that reason is, we will see that it does not apply to the God hypothesis.

The reason that we are led to the hypothesis of a designer by considering both the watch and the eye is that these are complex physical structures that carry out a complex function, and we cannot see how they could have come into existence out of unorganized matter purely on the basis of the purposeless laws of physics. For the elements of which they are composed to have come together in just this finely tuned way purely as a result of physical and chemical laws would have been such an improbable fluke that we can regard it in effect as impossible: the hypothesis of chance can be ruled out. But God, whatever he may be, is not a complex physical inhabitant of the natural world. The explanation of his existence as a chance concatenation of atoms is not a possibility for which we must find an alternative, because that is not what anybody means by God. If the God hypothesis makes sense at all, it offers a different kind of explanation from those of physical science: purpose or intention of a mind without a body, capable nevertheless of creating and forming the entire physical world. The point of the hypothesis is to claim that not all explanation is physical, and that there is a mental, purposive, or intentional explanation more fundamental than the basic laws of physics, because it explains even them.

http://www.tnr.com/docprint.mhtml?i=20061023&s=nagel102306

***END-QUOTE***

Continuing:

“No, you do need a good reason to deny the eternal validity of the law of conservation -- beyond your religious belief. Having doubts is one thing and even that requires some justification, but going as far as outright denial is another matter.”

Actually, I don’t need any reason to deny the eternal validity of such a law. Rather, the onus is on those who believe it to offer some reason to believe it in the form of hard evidence.

Yes, but of course, we’re not talking about “our” universe, now are we?—but about a hypothetical alternative universe.

“Of course, positing a God "solves" this problem at one level since you then supply a "source" for the energy coming out of nothing. However, you are then taking a gigantic leap into the unknown and the unknowable -- it's indeed a leap of faith, pure and simple. In positing God, you're also at the same time preventing any explanation of ex nihilo creation. You're only explaining who the agent is (to the extent such a transcendent unknowable agent can be explained or defined!),”

There are standard definitions of the divine attributes in philosophical and systematic theology, viz.

P. van Inwagen, The Problem of Evil (Oxford 2006), Lecture 2.

E. Wierenga, The Nature of God (Cornell 1989)

“While there is still much that science needs to solve and discover, it seems in this case a fairly safe bet to rely on top-notch scientists like Guth and Hawking.”

1.It’s not a safe bet when today’s top-notch scientists contradict each other. If they knew where the truth lay, they wouldn’t propose so many mutually exclusive cosmological theories. So they really don’t know what they’re talking about. Rather, they’re groping in the darkness of a measureless cave with a box of matches.

2.And, speaking of Hawking, he’s a classic antirealist in his philosophy of science. As he said in his debate with Roger Penrose:

“He's a Platonist and I am a positivist. He's worried that Schrödinger's cat is in a quantum state, where it is half dead and half alive. He feels that can't correspond to reality. But that doesn't bother me. I don't demand that a theory correspond to reality because I do not know what it is. Reality is not a quality you can test with litmus paper. All I am concerned with is that the theory should predict the results of measurements.”

Continuing:

“You are here postulating a transcendent realm beyond the reach of science. Again, that's a giant leap. If it is beyond science, then it's beyond our knowledge.”

You are now equating scientific knowledge with all knowledge. This is a hopeless position:

i) Science depends on metascientific assumptions. See the aforementioned materials on methodological naturalism.

ii) There are fields of knowledge, such as history, which are not reducible to science. History accentuates the particular and unrepeatable, science the universal and repeatable.

“Yes, numbers do exist, but not as a physical reality in the universe, but as human constructs to describe reality. In the case of possible worlds, we are talking about real physical entities that may or may not exist, not abstract constructs.”

A real nonexistent physical entity. Care to rephrase that?

“Besides, the fine-tuning argument also employs hypotheticals, i.e. other possible values for the Big Bang constants (the cards in Penrose's royal-flush-yielding deck). How do we know other values are possible? And anyway, as I've written before, our universe is not particularly bio-friendly, a point you haven't responded to. There is a vast amount of cosmic material out there -- galaxies, stars, planets, nebulae, etc -- that is not life-bearing or life-enabling, most which certainly had no effect on the emergence of life on our planet. Why would a cosmic designer need to create a vast mostly lifeless and non-life-permitting universe in order to generate intelligent life on one little planet? Surely he would have found a much more efficient way to do this, if that was his main goal -- unless he wanted to keep a small group of humans employed as astronomers and astrophysicists! Hawking writes in A Brief History of Time (Chpt. 8) that "the strong anthropic principle would claim that this whole vast construction exists simply for our sake. This is very hard to believe." Indeed!!”

i) You’re lifting “biofriendly” from a NYT review I sent you of Dawkins’ new book. I myself did not deploy the fine-tuning argument in the course of our exchange.

ii) However, the point of the argument is not that you need a big universe for life to exist on planet earth, but that you need a big universe for life to exist anywhere at all—whether here or elsewhere in the universe.

“Besides, it took billions of years after the BB for life to start evolving on our planet. Life on Earth adapts to the environment it finds itself in. The universe was not somehow designed to enable life, and particularly life on Earth; rather, life and human life arose slowly in very difficult conditions through evolutionary adaption. As Francois Tremblay writes in his article "The Many Problems of the Fine-Tuning Argument": "We should no more be surprised at how well the universe fits us, than we should be surprised at how well a baked cookie fits its mold".”

Well, I don’t share your operating premise. I don’t subscribe to macroevolution—much less naturalistic evolution. For one thing, evolutionary psychology undermines the foundations of reason, which renders the entire thesis self-refuting.

“The physicist Victor Stenger has done simulations that show that quite a few alternative universes (i.e. those where the four main constants would have different values) would "allow time for stellar evolution and heavy element nucleosynthesis" which are essential for the emergence of life, though of course other values would not yield our form of life.”

Computer simulations are a sorry substitute for empirical evidence.

“Another point, made by physicist Sean Carroll in his article "Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists", is that what we consider physical constants could be "merely local phenomena, in the sense that there are other regions of the universe where they take on completely different values." I think by "universe" he means "multiverse" as he goes on to speak of "innumerable distinct expanding unverses" consistent with the theory of "eternal inflation". He writes further that "In a universe comprised of many distinct regions with different values of the coupling constants, it is tautologous that intelligent observers will only measure the values which obtain in those regions which are consistent with the existence of such observers."

Now you’re resorting to an appeal which is diametrically opposed to your prior insistence on the universality and eternality of the law of conversation.

“But even without positing other universes, the point remains that life arose where it was possible to arise given the existing conditions. Earth may or may not be the only planet where such conditions developed. It's far-fetched to assert that the BB was pre-arranged to create those conditions, which would also mean that movements and combinations of matter (from the elementary particle level on up) following the BB were precisely programmed and guided all the way up to the formation of the Earth and beyond, including the correct placing of the Earth in its orbit.”

You apparently interpret the fine-tuning argument to imply that life *had* to originate given certain initial conditions.

Is that the argument? Or is the argument that, given the origin of life, certain initial conditions had to obtain, and these conditions are fine-tuned for the possibility of life, not the inevitability of life. That’s what I’ve read in Christian formulations of the fine-tuning argument:

http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/design.shtml?main

http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft0106/articles/barr.html

“The fine-tuning argument falsely assumes that human beings are supposed to exist and then argues that things were therefore set up and steered to bring human beings into existence, and that therefore there was a conscious supernatural agent who did this. This is fallacious thinking that looks at things backwards. It starts from the ending point.”

i) No, this strikes me as a caricature of the fine-tuning argument, which, in turn, piggybacks on a caricature of ID theory:

http://www.arsdisputandi.org/publish/articles/000191/article.pdf

http://www.galilean-library.org/ratzsch.html

ii) Let’s also keep in mind that one doesn’t have to be a doctrinaire Christian to be impressed with the fine-tuning argument. Freeman Dyson was the one who famously said it’s as if the universe knew we were coming.

“By the way, how do Christians reconcile the BB, which the great majority of astrophysicists agree took place 13-14 billion years ago, with their Genesis-based view that mankind was created in the same week as the Earth and the whole universe, and that mankind is only a few thousand years old? Besides this, Genesis says light on Earth -- and day and night -- were created before the Sun was, among various other nonsensical assertions. How do you get light on Earth -- and day and night -- without the Sun??”

Well, there’s a short answer and a long answer. The short answer is that a Christian can either reinterpret the Bible to agree with popular, or else he can reinterpret popular to agree with the Bible.

Former strategies include the gap theory, day/age theory, revelatory day theory, analogical day theory, and framework hypothesis.

Latter strategies involve a direct challenge to the methods and assumptions of popular science. This can take several forms:

i) One can challenge BB and/or conventional dating schemes. John Byl and Kurt Wise take this approach.

ii) One can invoke creation ex nihilo to distinguish between the inception of the initial conditions, and the resultant cyclical processes from that frontloaded fiat.

It would be analogous to the difference between the time a watch is made, and the time a watch is set for.

iii) Dating involves the measurement of time, which—in turn—raises the question of whether time has an intrinsic metric. If not, then the age assigned to the universe by popular science is merely an artifact of our conventional chronometry. For a discussion of the issues, cf.:

http://fds.oup.com/www.oup.co.uk/pdf/0-19-875254-7.pdf

“Your point only supports Dawkins' argument since theists argue the emergence of mankind was improbable without divine intervention -- and complements my argument that apparently improbable things do happen all the time, that many things may be improbable at one level, but are not so improbable at another.”

This confuses the epistemic improbability of our knowing the outcome, given a physically deterministic system, with the metaphysical improbability of a physically deterministic system coming into being.

“I think that when you ask a question like "what is selecting for the instantiation?", you are implying what you want to prove, namely, the existence of an Intelligent Selector. At any rate, if we are to speak of "selectors", the selector or selectors can indeed be a naturalistic factor or any number of them.”

Can it? Why does one possible world obtain rather than another?

“I wasn't referring to the psychological process of abstraction. I meant abstract constructs, which can indeed include numbers. If you're saying God is an "abstract universal", I have to repeat what I've said earlier in this email and in my previous one: I don't think an abstract form can create a universe. To say that God exists in the same sense that numbers exist is not much of an argument for the existence of a God that created the universe and mankind. Numbers are human constructs to describe reality. If you're saying God is like a number, then you're admitting that God is a human construct!! And then, I'd have to say to you: welcome to the atheist camp!!”

A couple of basic problems:

i) If you’re going to adopt conceptualism, then the physical universe does not exemplify an objective, mathematical structure. Rather, that is a merely human, psychological projection on an otherwise amorphous universe.

ii) Apropos (i), the theories of mathematical physics do not and cannot, on that view, be truly descriptive of the universe. They do not correspond to any extramental reality.

So you’ve just consigned all of your cosmological theories to the cosmic dumpster.

Hawking isn't giving you the relief you continue to think he is. His positivism means that he doesn't care what philosophical machinations get lodged against the definition of reality. To him, all that matters is predictive and explanatory performance. That's a classic "pure science" position. If you've read more than this fragment of him, you would understand that.

Second, having just finished Leonard Susskind's The Cosmic Landscape and the Illusion of Intelligent Design, it's clear that the maths that are settling out in string theory are *not* sufficient to explain away cosmological ID (the Strong Anthropic Principle), but instead resolves to a very large solution space of possible configurations. This lends significant mathematical weight to the hypothesis that our universe is just one "bubble" in a "bubblebath of universes" as Susskind put it.

So, it would not be true to say there is no reason to suspect that other universes exist outside our own. Current string theory math points to an very very large set of possible configurations for universes. This doesn't prove they *exist*, but does establish a mathematical framework for a multitude of universes existing, all cohering in the underlying maths.

Touchstone said:---To him, all that matters is predictive and explanatory performance.---

This begs the question. Predictions of what? Explanations of what?

How do we determine whether a prediction is a good one? How do we determine if an explanation is a bad one?

As soon as you ask those questions, you're getting in the meta-scientific realm, and in such a realm questions about reality cannot be ignored.

If Hawking, as you claim, "doesn't care what philosophical machinations get lodged against the definition of reality" then he cannot explain why any scientific explanation is valid or why any prediction should be accepted. In other words, Hawking's "science" becomes nothing more than a prophet's oracle.

Hawking isn't giving you the relief you continue to think he is. His positivism means that he doesn't care what philosophical machinations get lodged against the definition of reality. To him, all that matters is predictive and explanatory performance. That's a classic "pure science" position. If you've read more than this fragment of him, you would understand that.

**************************************************

1.I don't need Hawking to give me relief. The point, rather, is that people cite Hawking all the time to justify a secular cosmology. But his philosophy of science doesn't underwrite ontological claims.

2.I interpret Hawking the same way Roger Penrose does, and I daresay that Penrose is in a much better position to understand Hawking that you are given their collaboration over the years. As Penrose explains:

"Holders of viewpoint (c) tend to regard themselves as 'positivists' who have no truck with 'wish-washy' issues of ontology in any case, claiming to believe that they have no concern with that is 'real' and what is 'not real'. As Stephen Hawking has said:

'I don't demand that a theory correspond to reality because I don't know what it is. Reality is not a quality you can test with litmus paper. All I'm concerned with is that the theory should predict the results of measurements.'

My own position, on the other hand, is that the issue of ontology is crucial to quantum mechanics, though it raises some matters that are far from being resolved at the present time" The Road to Reality (Knopf 2004), 785.

If, according to Hawking, a scientific theory doesn't need to correspond to reality—an interpretation confirmed by Penrose (who, by contrast, favors a realist position)—then the theory isn't lodging a truth-claim about reality. It isn't descriptive of the way things are.

You really need to brush up on the philosophy of science so that you understand what various schools of thought stand for.

Moreover, establishing a “mathematical framework” isn’t the same thing as empirical evidence.

Furthermore, you only have to read the debate between Smolin and Susskind to see how unsettled this is:

Susskind isn't claiming it's settled. He's a hardcore atheist and freely admits that Weinberg's formulation of the Anthropic principle had *him* wondering about a Designer for a while. Susskind isn't overwhelmed himself by the "megaverse" hypothesis, but is increasingly convinced by the way the math framework is coming to rest.

I didn't suggest that would be empirical evidence. Anything outside our universe would by beyond observation by definition Steve. But there are a lot of ways to skin a cat; direct observation is by no means the only tool in the toolbox for science and physics. It string theory math provides a strong, coherent explanation for the "cosmic landscape" which Susskind describes in his book, it lends theoretical strength to the idea that there may be billions of billions of universes out beyond our own universal perimeter.

Such a concept does nothing to disprove or affirm God. It *may* provide an explanation for the "fine tuning" of our universe that cascades from iteration -- if there are billions of bilions of universes in the cosmic landscape, it's not so improbable any more to know that there is at least one with parameters configured like ours. But, even then, this neither affirms or disproves God.

As for Hawking, you're still misunderstanding his claims. Have you read the man? For him, asking 'what is reality?' is a philosophical endeavor, not a scientific one; what is *normative* are the predictions, observations, and results. For him, that's all the reality he needs to understand. Those *define* reality for Hawking, in absence of some ontic framework that transcends it.

So Hawking isn't saying reality doesn't exist, he's saying that it doesn't matter how things are reified philosophically -- all that matters is how ever the real world (however it's defined) performs against objective tests.

When you hide behind anti-realism to protect your YEC theology, your saying the opposite of what Hawking is saying. You don't care how the tests, observations and predictions perform (the things Hawking considers normative), they're useless, else they'd destroy your interpretation of the Bible.

Or at least force you to do the God-made-a-pretty-supernova-in-the-sky-that-never-was-really-there dance of "mature creation". Hawking on the other hand, rejects metaphysics -- that's what positivists *do*. Asking "what is real?" as a philosopher is a meaningless question to Hawking; he denies there is any way to know objective transcendant truth (that would be what you and I espouse). Instead, according to Hawking, our *only* means of even getting dim, distorted glimpses of reality are through scientific theories and their application.

Unless I've read you completely wrong you do *not* hold scientific theory as our limited but best way of knowing or approaching the truth. That'd be quite a novel position for a Christian to hold.

You said:If Hawking, as you claim, "doesn't care what philosophical machinations get lodged against the definition of reality" then he cannot explain why any scientific explanation is valid or why any prediction should be accepted. In other words, Hawking's "science" becomes nothing more than a prophet's oracle.

I think you *do* understand Hawking, then. Thank you. The way you've put it conveys the positivist sense -- it's *not* transcendantly, deductively "true", but simply the best "lens" we have, imperfect as it is. That's why it's so ironic to see Steve invoke Hawking, because Hawking is emphasizing the precisely the opposite of what Steve Hays is. For Hawking, trust is *invested* in observation, prediction and falsification. For Hays, none of that is to be trusted.

But you are right; Hawking, as a positivist says that science is an oracle of sorts. You can't prove it is correctly mapped to reality, because no such mapping can be proved, in principle. Hawking doesn't worry about that at *all*. That kind of meta-science, the kind which Steve clings to, isn't useful at all. The 'prophetic oracle', as you say, is all we have, unproven as it is meta-scientifically.

From the sounds of your post, Hawking's stance doesn't sound very satisfying. And I agree, it's not to me either. Positivism is, as one of my philosophy professors used to say, a "wonderful tool in the hands of a scientist, and a trainwreck in the hands of a philosopher". I think that's a good rule of thumb.

i) There’s nothing sensible about extrapolating from the only universe we know and know to exist to the physical conditions of a hypothetical alternative universe which is both unknown and unknowable.

This not what the heavies in that field are saying at all. Quite the opposite. Leonard Susskind and Joe Polchinski in particular have advanced arguments that predict something like 10^500 other universes exist as part of a "cosmic landscape".

It's certainly true to say that we cannot, even in principle, physically observe anything external to our universe. But it *is* sensible to suppose that Susskind's idea could be right -- it's a circumstance that proceeds unavoidably from the M-theoy model, as it currently is formulated.

In other words, M-Theory's 20 year quest to provide a mathematical rationale for our universe's finely tuned physics has led instead of to the desired explanation, to a much different one. Instead of maths that explain why our universe must be the way it is, assuming it's the only one, the maths work out cleanly as a *set* of configurations for a very large number of universes.

The implications are fairly clear from an M-theory standpoint; our universe is configured the way it is simply because that's where it lives on the "landscape" of 10^500 universes. It's similar to the explanation as to why earth has an hospitable environmental configuration for organic life. Out of a very large number of stars and planets in the universe, statistically it's quite likely that at least one would fall within the needed "window" of acceptable parameters.

Susskind, Polchinski and others are suggesting that our universe is somewhat analogous to earth among all the other planets in our universe. If there are 10^500 surface nodes on the cosmic landscape, than it's not statistically improbable that there exists a universe configured like ours. Our universe is just the "lucky" one out of billions of billions of trillions of tries.

That isn't proven, or even convincing overall in the community at this point. There are obviously good reasons to say it will never be proven, as we can't verify experientially anything beyond the bounds of our universe. But the leading model for a physics framework that harmonizes quantum and macro-scale physics now features a mathematical foundation that implies this universe is just one lottery ticket out of a great many.

It's not just wishful thinking on Susskind's part, although it is that, too I think. It's implied by the theoretical framework of M-Theory. If the Cosmic Landscape does *not* exist, then M-Theory is doomed as it is currently construed.

And that may be the case. M-Theory is heavy on theory, light on observational support. In order to really test it directly we would need a super-collider bigger than the solar system. Nevertheless, M-Theory is remarkable in its ability to explain and incorporate gravity as a natural part of its model right down to the QM level.

M-Theory is notoriously incomplete and hard to test. It makes strong, ambitious and precise predictions, but they are typically only manifest at the Planck scale. That makes them quite difficult to evaluate for us.

Either way, M-Theory has now thrown down the gauntlet; there is no pristine solution for a single vacuum state, a single solitary universe. Challenged as it is, M-theory has some tremendous notches in its belt -- M-theory's ability to successfully account for black hole entropy where (semi)classical models fail is one of those byproducts of the theory suggesting that it has something fundamentally *correct*, for example -- and only a fool would dismiss it outright.

All of which to say: Steve's claim that there's "nothing sensible about extrapolating from the only universe we know", is itself not a sensible assertion, given the the state of M-theory, among other things.

It's early in the morning, and I'm still recovering from my sinus infection, so I'll just hope this is coherent :-D

Touchstone said:---The way you've put it conveys the positivist sense -- it's *not* transcendantly, deductively "true", but simply the best "lens" we have, imperfect as it is.---

Except there is no way to know what "best" is in such a universe. Again, meta-science determines the scope and extent of science; science does not exist in a vacuum. The Scientific Method is basically nothing more than induction. Most "scientists" begin with a naturalistic/empirical worldview though. This colors what goes into the inductive method by ruling out certain possibilities from the start.

In other words, science isn't "pure." Science is merely the inductive method used by a certain philosophy. The question isn't whether the scientific method is the "best" method, but whether the philosophy that controls the scientific method is the best philosophy. After all, you can have a perfectly good circular saw that can pound nails into wood, but it's hardly the best method to do so.

You said:---For Hawking, trust is *invested* in observation, prediction and falsification.---

Again, of what? What is observed? What is predicted? What is falsified? These words require objects. Without objects, they are meaningless. Stripped of meaning, they are mearly sounds (when spoken) or squiggles (when written) signifying nothing.

But as soon as you attach objects to those terms, you're commiting yourself to a certain notion of reality. You're no longer silent on the issues of reality, whether you realize it or not.

You said:---You can't prove it is correctly mapped to reality, because no such mapping can be proved, in principle. Hawking doesn't worry about that at *all*. ---

If that were true, he wouldn't write on the issue. Instead, he wants to smuggle in his philosophy without having it questioned, and the best way to do that is to pretend you're not smuggling in anything in the first place.

But the problem is as soon as Hawking says anything as if it were true, he is making a statement on reality. Indeed, the very statement "You can't prove it is correctly mapped to reality, because no such mapping can be proved" is itself attempting to prove something is correctly mapped to reality. In other words, you are arguing that reality is such that you cannot correctly map anything to it; yet that statement, if accurate, just did what it denies.

You wrote:---The 'prophetic oracle', as you say, is all we have, unproven as it is meta-scientifically.---

There are so many errors and potential errors with this sentence, it's hard to know where to start.

A) How do you mean "unproven"? Are you using proof as what is derrived from scientific method? If so, then your statement is true but trivial. After all, you don't "prove" an argument with a method that relies on the argument being true already (circular reasoning).

B) I can't help but think that's not what you meant by the above. Instead, you seem to be using a different level of proof; a A proof that functions at the meta-scientific level. In which case, I ask you: How do you know this is "all we have"?

C) If what you say is true, then it is false. If this scientific method, which is nothing more than a scientific oracle, is "all we have" and yet we know that apart from science, then science is not "all we have" now is it?

You said:---Positivism is, as one of my philosophy professors used to say, a "wonderful tool in the hands of a scientist, and a trainwreck in the hands of a philosopher". I think that's a good rule of thumb.---

Except, as the above shows, it's not a wonderful tool in the hands of a scientist. Science is based on philosophy. Something that doesn't work philosophically cannot work scientifically. To pretend otherwise is simply absurd.

In other words, science isn't "pure." Science is merely the inductive method used by a certain philosophy. The question isn't whether the scientific method is the "best" method, but whether the philosophy that controls the scientific method is the best philosophy. After all, you can have a perfectly good circular saw that can pound nails into wood, but it's hardly the best method to do so.I understand what you are saying, but the positivist view -- Hawking's, I'm not a positivist, remember -- basically does away with the superintending philosophy. That's where it got its name: it depends supremely on the positive testimony of observation and prediction.

So you can say you're frustrated having to pound nails with a circular saw, but a positivist would say at least in that view you have good reason to think you *are* pounding nails, even if badly. Other philosophies that don't cling to observational and predictive performance can't even tell you if there *are* any nails, let alone whether you are actually pounding any or not.

The thing I think you're forgetting is that philosophy and meta-science become epistemically useless to a positivist to the extent they rely on *anything* but observation and prediction. So, you can advance a holistic "worldview" that incorporates theology and a bunch of other truth claims, but the positive would say: OK make a prediction, and let's see.

If you can't predict that God will do this at some observable point in an observable way for all to see, for example, the positivist would say you got nothin'. I'm not a positivist, but I definitely deal with them regularly. I'm trying to convey their absolute disdain for anything that doesn't correspond to the evidence and its predictive demands. You say the positivist rules out so many possibilities. The positivist says the possibilities you rule in are fundamentally unknowable, and therefore useless. To a positivist, all we can "know" is that which is congruent with evidence and accurate in prediction (within arbitrary tolerances).

You said:Again, of what? What is observed? What is predicted? What is falsified? These words require objects. Without objects, they are meaningless. Stripped of meaning, they are mearly sounds (when spoken) or squiggles (when written) signifying nothing.

That's not the case. If I can accurately predict the winning lottery number time after time, I don't have to know or even declare what a "lottery" is to assert a level of knowledge about lotteries.

This is precisely where Hawking and other positivists go completely against what Steve espouses. One doesn't need a transcendant understanding of the underlying system to make claims about our knowledge. Predictions are predictions. Could these predictions be illusory? Could we all be imagining that I won the lottery for the 100th time in a row? Sure, but that's simply a nod to the fact that we can't prove *anything*. Descartes, remember?

In at the quantum level, things are just plain weird. Bohr, Feynman and others consistently made the point that if you weren't weirded out at just the basics of quantum theory, then you really didn't get what was being presented. Spooky action at a distance and all that. Well Hawking and others contend that they don't need to have an ontic framework for quantum physics, what matters is predictions.

So, if a theory can predict accurately what will happen when two particles collide, or when complex ensembles interact in a complicated Feynman diagram, then to the extent the prediction matches with observation, it is "true". One needn't understand whether they are "string theory strings", or what strings are "made of"; if you understand enough to make accurate predictions, you understand at some level.

But as soon as you attach objects to those terms, you're commiting yourself to a certain notion of reality. You're no longer silent on the issues of reality, whether you realize it or not.

Oh, Hawking's fully aware. He discusses it at length in multiple places. It *is* a commitment to a certain notion of reality. For example, Biblical assertions in the Bible aren't useful to Hawking as their predictions cannot be tested. One has to die in order to reach a point of evaluation, and can no longer report back with the answers. The positivist takes a dim view of any notion of reality that doesn't attach to evidence and prediction. Logically, Hawking makes allowances for a deistic type God, but considers that "God" simply as the some of the knowledge of how the universe works. Even then, he makes caveats for such conjecture as a kind of whimsy. Without a way to test and predict, it's all whimsy to Hawking, and others like him.

That's what makes me smile when Steve invokes Hawkings: they mean completely different and opposite things when they each challenge the "reality of reality".

Touchstone said:---I understand what you are saying, but the positivist view -- Hawking's, I'm not a positivist, remember -- basically does away with the superintending philosophy.---

Except that he doesn't do that. Positivists can't get away from a superintending philosophy, because the philosophy is how you determine A) what hypotheses ought to be run through the inductive method; and B) how to interpret the results of them.

Again, this is illustrated by the fact that there is still no object for the terms "observation" or "prediction."

One doesn't observe nothing, and one doesn't make predictions about nothing. Again, as soon as you supply objects there you are asserting a controling philosophy. There is no way around this.

You said:---So you can say you're frustrated having to pound nails with a circular saw, but a positivist would say at least in that view you have good reason to think you *are* pounding nails, even if badly. ---

This wasn't my point in the illustration. Your claim was that science was "the best" method; my illustration was to demonstrate that even if it works it might not be the best method. Determining what is "best" requires a knowledge of reality. It also requires a specific goal and the way to verify whether either of two (or more) methods actually goes toward that goal. In short, to say science is the best, one must have knowledge of both reality itself and other methods at determining what reality is.

You said:---The thing I think you're forgetting is that philosophy and meta-science become epistemically useless to a positivist to the extent they rely on *anything* but observation and prediction.---

Again, observation and prediction OF WHAT?

You said:---So, you can advance a holistic "worldview" that incorporates theology and a bunch of other truth claims, but the positive would say: OK make a prediction, and let's see. ---

This is simplistic at best. The predictions must somehow relate to the theory being produced, which requires one to get beyond mere prediction.

After all, if I said:

A) God exists.

B) I predict half of the teams who play football today will win and half will lose.

C) B) occurs.

Will the predictive aspect of the theory prove A) right? If not, why not? (Note: as soon as you answer "why" you are invoking philosophy above and beyond prediction and observation.)

How do you determine what observations are correct observations? How do you determine which predictions are valid predictions? These questions require a fundamental philosophy to control the induction method. The method cannot stand by itself.

You said:---If you can't predict that God will do this at some observable point in an observable way for all to see, for example, the positivist would say you got nothin'.---

Notice how much baggage is carried along, unexplained, in this. Again, predictions are left object-less. Observations are left object-less, although now it's even stricter that it must be "an observable way for all to see." I merely ask: WHY?

What reason does the positivist have to assert any of the above? His answer cannot come from observation or prediction, mind you; it will come from his philosophy. Even stating the above requires you to hold to a specific control philosphy first. And because it requires that philosophy, it is self-refuting.

You said:---To a positivist, all we can "know" is that which is congruent with evidence and accurate in prediction (within arbitrary tolerances).---

How does he know this? It's not from observation or prediction, and therefore (as I've said dozens of times already) this whole view is self-refuting. It must be false in order to be true! In other words, if you know the above statement, then you know something from other methods than observation and prediction, and therefore observation and prediction are not the only methods to knowing something.

You said:---If I can accurately predict the winning lottery number time after time, I don't have to know or even declare what a "lottery" is to assert a level of knowledge about lotteries.---

This is just plain absurd. To have a level of knowledge about something, you must know something about that thing. If you predict a winning lottery number, but have no "lottery", then what have you predicted? How can you determine that your prediction is accurate? How do you observe it if you don't know where to look?

In short, if you're making predictions the only way you can observe them to see if they are correct is if you actually know soemthing about the nature of what you are predicting.

Otherwise, it's as meaningful as me saying, "I predict ulristpax will cause jyrsob" and then claming I don't have to know anything about ulristpax to know that jyrsob will come from it.

You said:---One doesn't need a transcendant understanding of the underlying system to make claims about our knowledge.---

Yet that itself is a transcendant understanding, isn't it? How else can you rule out the need for it in all instances if it is not transcendent? And if it is transcendent, then the statement is false.

You said:---Predictions are predictions.---

And errors are errors.

You said:---Sure, but that's simply a nod to the fact that we can't prove *anything*. ---

Can you prove that?

You said:---So, if a theory can predict accurately what will happen when two particles collide, or when complex ensembles interact in a complicated Feynman diagram, then to the extent the prediction matches with observation, it is "true". One needn't understand whether they are "string theory strings", or what strings are "made of"; if you understand enough to make accurate predictions, you understand at some level.---

Yet Hawking, in making his predictions, is still asserting facts about reality. That is, he is asserting that these particles do exist in some manner. It's a huge leap to go from "We don't know how exactly this works" to "We don't know that it exists." It is an even further leap to go from "We don't have a sufficient method in this instance" to "We don't have a sufficient method in any instance."

You said:---Oh, Hawking's fully aware. He discusses it at length in multiple places. It *is* a commitment to a certain notion of reality.---

Which has been my point all along.

You said:---For example, Biblical assertions in the Bible aren't useful to Hawking as their predictions cannot be tested.---

Why not?

You said:---One has to die in order to reach a point of evaluation, and can no longer report back with the answers. ---

Says who? The Bible certainly doesn't make this claim. Then again, the Bible doesn't rely on your first-hand experiences to determine its validity. In other words, Hawking (if you report him accurately here) is forcing his worldview onto Scripture and then determining that Scripture doesn't follow. But Scripture doesn't have Hawkings' worldview. Scripture doesn't accept his notion of reality.

And this is the whole point. Hawking is assuming something about reality and then forcing his assumptions on everyone without demonstrating why this should be the case, and while simultaneously arguing that one cannot do what he is, in fact, doing! Positivism doesn't shoot itself in the foot; it puts the barrel square to its own temple.

You said:---The positivist takes a dim view of any notion of reality that doesn't attach to evidence and prediction. ---

You mean like positivism? Where is the prediction for the validation of this method? Where is the observation and the evidence for positivism?

One doesn't observe nothing, and one doesn't make predictions about nothing. Again, as soon as you supply objects there you are asserting a controling philosophy. There is no way around this.

Let's not be pedantic. We're dealing with sensory data. Shared, common sensory data. For example, if you hand a baseball around a room full of scientists, they will report a common set of sense-data. Roughly spherical, white in color, lacing, weighs a few ounces, etc. A postivist accepts shared, common sense data as a provisional object. Or it simply says what looks like a baseball to observers *is* a baseball, for the purposes of investigation.

So the bootstrapping of "objects" existentially is simply steam-rolled. If everyone agrees it's a baseball, it is, provisionally. If the observes agree that the water in the beaker boiled at temperature X, then it is considered an observed, shared phenomenon. You're mistaken in thinking that positivists feel the least bit obligated to explain what the "strings" are made of that make up the baseball in order to perform an experiment on it, and make predictions about its flight through the air, for example.

I get the sense that you think positivists are "cheating" or something by not requiring a fully reduced explanation of what makes the baseball really. Positivism is a mutation of anti-realism, remember? It is skeptical that such a thing as you apparently demand is possible, even in principle. In any case, a positivist can't be bothered by your objections. He's absolutely undisturbed by you're asking if the baseball in his hand is a baseball or is "real".

I said, previously:One doesn't need a transcendant understanding of the underlying system to make claims about our knowledge.---

Yet that itself is a transcendant understanding, isn't it? How else can you rule out the need for it in all instances if it is not transcendent? And if it is transcendent, then the statement is false.

I think you're using the term differently than I am. I mean 'transcendant' in the sense that it transcends philosophy, that it is absolutely true in a platonic sense. As it is, I think you're using it as a synonym for "meta-scientific", or "up one level in the abstraction layers". My point was that one doesn't need an exhaustive understanding of a system at the lowest levels to make observations about the behavior of the system at higher levels.

You said:This is simplistic at best. The predictions must somehow relate to the theory being produced, which requires one to get beyond mere prediction.

After all, if I said:

A) God exists.

B) I predict half of the teams who play football today will win and half will lose.

C) B) occurs.

Will the predictive aspect of the theory prove A) right? If not, why not? (Note: as soon as you answer "why" you are invoking philosophy above and beyond prediction and observation.)

As above, observation implies shared sense-data. And, when we speak about predictions, the predictions are expressed as causal chains, typically building on other theories that have been supported by observation and prediction. And as for your prediction, that isn't what is meant by a prediction in science. A prediction that supports a theory should be a)non-obvious and b) related mechanistically to the hypothesis itself. Yours fails on both accounts. That's not peculiar to positivism. That's just basic scientific epistemology.

You said:Notice how much baggage is carried along, unexplained, in this. Again, predictions are left object-less. Observations are left object-less, although now it's even stricter that it must be "an observable way for all to see." I merely ask: WHY?

I don't know if you are being purposely pedantic here or are new to discussing this stuff. The term "observation" when invoked by a positivist (and others) implies common sense-data as the basis for identifying "objects" and "phenomenon". In other words, if the observers in the room have sense data that the height of the red fluid in the thermometer rests between 60 and 61 degrees, then that is taken as an observed event, and epistemic object. The thermometer could be wrong, or miscalibrated, or some evil wizard could be synthesizing a similar experience in all their heads. For the purposes of proceeding, the shared experience is by definition an epistemic object.

What reason does the positivist have to assert any of the above? His answer cannot come from observation or prediction, mind you; it will come from his philosophy. Even stating the above requires you to hold to a specific control philosphy first. And because it requires that philosophy, it is self-refuting.

Yes, as I've explained, the philosophy is: observations and predictions are normative. And I guess I have to note that observations imply common sense data between observers to establish a nominal "reality" for objects, and predictions imply a common validation of the observed results of some phenomenon.

But, positivism is just like *any* other epistemology; it's is predicated on naked assertions, axioms that claimed as self-evident. That's not a surprise or even a defect to a positivist. It just makes a positivist an equal citizen with every other view, fundamentally.

You said:Otherwise, it's as meaningful as me saying, "I predict ulristpax will cause jyrsob" and then claming I don't have to know anything about ulristpax to know that jyrsob will come from it.

Ahh, we approach the "what the meaning of is, is" idea now. As it is you have it backwards, according to a positivist. To him, the only way you *can* know that a jyrsob will result from a ulristpax is through observation. He's approaching it from precisely the opposite direction. Observation defines reality, rather than reality defining observation.

If I claim: ulristpax will cause jyrsob, I will need the following to make it useful.

1. A shared meaning for "ulristpax" and "jyrsob". This does *not* imply an fundamental understanding of what an ulristpax is, but simply an agreed upon set of sense-data that distinguish ulristpax from "not-ulristpax".

2. Novelty in the prediction. If "jyrsob" is an obvious prediction based on existing knowledge, it's not helpful to the theory. In my lottery example, our current understanding is that lottery numbers are generated in random fashion, and thus cannot be predicted routinely. Routine success in predicting lottery numbers would be a novel prediction. Your prediction that half of the NFL teams playing will lose is on the other end -- obvious.

I'm not sure what the point is of using a made up word here is. Words are just shared sense-data. "jysrob" would have precisely the same meaning as "baseball" if we all agreed it did.

I said, previously:Oh, Hawking's fully aware. He discusses it at length in multiple places. It *is* a commitment to a certain notion of reality.

To which you responded:Which has been my point all along.

Well, then are just wasting our time here? The point is that positivism makes brute assertions -- bootstrapping premises that claims are simply true, without any need for justification. That's what *any* epistemology does. If that's the case, then what's the problem?

I can only think you're laboring under the illusion that this makes positivism unique or even special. It doesn't. Bootstrapping presuppositions are required if one is to go further than "Cogito ergo sum". The only way I can account for you resistance here is if you are approaching this from the understanding that there is some sort of philosophy that *isn't* "turtles all the down".

Maybe you're just playing the part of the naive one for the sake of argument, but for you've said, I can't see why positivism's presuppositions are even *interesting* viz. any other epistemic frameworks. Realism? Presuppositions. Anti-realism? Presuppositions, just a different set. Constructivism? Same thing. Turtles, all the way down, for all of them, and all the others.

I think that Touchstone is missing the point (as usual). He is acting as if Calvin Dude denies the accuracy of his definition. As if Calvin Dude just doesn't understand what positivism (as a philosophy of science) stands for.

From what I can tell, Calvin Dude doesn't have a problem with the definition. Rather, Calvin Dude is taking issue with the internal consistency of the position thus defined.

The question is not if positivism lays claim to metaphysical neutrality, but if positivism can make good on its claim. Is it possible for positivism to successfully maintain its noncommittal stance, or must it implicitly takes sides in the very attempt to remain innocent of ontological commitments?

Calvin Dude accepts the definition in order to reject the position thus defined. He takes the definition for granted as his point of departure to then mount a challenge the position on its own terms. That's my reading.

Now you are falling into the same trouble Calvindude did. Where do you get the idea that positivism is "metaphysical neutrality"??? I've never claimed such, or argued from that basis. Positivism makes "in your face" claims about reality; it is "committal" where you're worrying about it being "noncommittal". It *explicitly* takes sides where you wonder if really had to implicitly takes sides with respect to ontological commitments.

The very name "positivism" has all the clues you need for this. Positivism makes axiomatic assertions -- assumptions that are considered "self-evident", just as every philosophical/epistemological framework does. Calvindude, you, I and everyone else are free to deny/reject those assumptions, but unless you reduce yourself to "cogito ergo sum", you're gonna be embracing *some* self-evident assertions, it's just a matter of which ones (and I think it was Wittgenstein who pointed out that Descartes forgot to doubt his knowledge of language, so "cogito ergo sum" is even as stretch).

Beyond the assumptions, Calvindude hasn't even mentioned any internal consistencies with positivism. The first-principle assumptions are not internal inconsistencies, but rather the epistemic foundation for the whole structure.

So, Calvindude objects to making initial definitions like "only observations and predictions count". That's fine, but those kinds of "ground rules" are what philosophies are made of. Realism has the same problem, just a different set of assumptions.

Maybe I *am* misunderstanding Calvindude's objections, but as I see it, he's just run into the idea of positivism the first time, and as far as I can tell, the idea that philosophies bring naked assertions to the table to bootstrap themselves. I get the strong impression that he thinks positive is "cheating" in a way other philosophies don't.

Also, his struggle with the idea of sense-data, observation and natural language with respect to positivism are a good clue he's new to the idea. And that's fine -- no problem with wrestling with a new concept.

But now, you're the philosophy expert around these parts, and you're apparently making the same mistakes he does in reading his comments...

Here you engage in your typical behavior. After you find yourself in an argument where you can't just steamroll the other person, you resort to name calling and assertions of generalities. Thus, you say I'm being pedantic. Then you go on to claim:

---We're dealing with sensory data. Shared, common sensory data.---

As if your knowledge of "[s]hared, common sensory data" were just a given that everyone must hold to. But this is even worse, for you are defending the positivist idea at this point. The positivist cannot prove that there is such a thing as a shared, common senseory experience!

Again, positivism is a self-refuting philosophy. No dodge on our part is going to alter this. If something must be false in order to be true, it is self-refuting. Positivism claims to know things about itself that it likewise claims are impossible to actually know.

So let's try building a philosophy that actually can appeal to a "common, sensory" experience. Positivism doesn't because, as you've argued, it's not concerned with reality in the first place. How can it know what is common if it cannot even know what is real?

You said:---For example, if you hand a baseball around a room full of scientists, they will report a common set of sense-data. ---

Assuming that the baseball is real, the other scientists are real, what they report is actually heard correctly by you, etc. Why do you want me to swallow a boatload of assumptions, especially so that I can then accept a position that supposedly denies these assumptions?

You said:---If everyone agrees it's a baseball, it is, provisionally.---

Oh, I forgot. The positivist is omniscient too.

You said:---You're mistaken in thinking that positivists feel the least bit obligated to explain what the "strings" are made of that make up the baseball in order to perform an experiment on it, and make predictions about its flight through the air, for example.---

You're mistaken in thinking that was my argument.

Positivists are obligated to demonstrate a justification for their positivism. If the positivist makes claims based on observation, he must defend those claims. The defense of those claims include the metaphysical underpinnings of the nature of reality.

In short, as I've already explained, induction is not sufficient as a stand-alone philosophy. This is actually very easy to prove using the Grue Paradox, as I pointed out in my blog post here. If induction can prove two sides of a contradiction then induction is not able to give us truth-values; instead, a truth-value philosophy must control the induction method and the truth-value of a claim is predicated on the philosophy that gives the justificiation for the use of induction.

Positivism does not do this. Positivism cuts itself off from the possibility of justifying induction, and as such positivism can only result in radical skepticism (if applied consistently). As soon as a positivist make a truth claim, he is no longer a skeptic and as such he is employing something other than positivism as the basis of his claim.

You said:---I get the sense that you think positivists are "cheating" or something by not requiring a fully reduced explanation of what makes the baseball really. Positivism is a mutation of anti-realism, remember? It is skeptical that such a thing as you apparently demand is possible, even in principle.---

As such, positivism is skeptical of positivism itself. Again, this is the entire problem with the system. It is self-referentially invalid. As I said, it doesn't shoot itself in the foot; it shoots itself in the head. If it is true, it must be false.

You are seeking to compartmentalize here. Positivism is true for everything except positivism. But this is simply an arbitrary claim, one that you cannot justify.

You said:---As above, observation implies shared sense-data. ---

It implies no such thing. It implies only a perceiving subject. Observation doesn't imply anything beyond that.

You said:---And as for your prediction, that isn't what is meant by a prediction in science. ---

You mean there is an overriding philosophy governing what is actually science and what is not.... Why are you arguing as if there isn't then?

As soon as you say that observation must be a certain type of observation, and predictions must be a certain type of prediction, you are using philosophy that transcends the inductive method. On what basis do you determine what good science is? The only way you can answer that is with philosophical, not scientific, claims.

You said:---A prediction that supports a theory should be a)non-obvious and b) related mechanistically to the hypothesis itself.---

Justify that position. Why SHOULD it be that way?

When you get your reason, then ask yourself: Did I observe that reason? Did I predict that reason? If not, then your reason isn't based on observation or prediction, and therefore fails the positivist test.

Feel free to do so without failing this test. I'll give you a hint: it's not possible. And because of that, positivism will never be self-consistent. But you go ahead and prove otherwise--the ball's in your court to prove it, not in mine to disprove it.

You said:---I don't know if you are being purposely pedantic here or are new to discussing this stuff. The term "observation" when invoked by a positivist (and others) implies common sense-data as the basis for identifying "objects" and "phenomenon". ---

If you assume I'm being pedantic, it's only because you're ignorant. If you want me to be pedantic, let me just point out that for someone who supposedly doesn't agree with positivism, you sure argue as if you are a positivist. Likewise, you seem to think that positivists can make claims without justifying their claims.

Anyone can do that. That was the point of my prediction about the football teams. If you don't need to justify positivism, then why do I need to justify my mock prediction?

If positivism holds other ideas to a different standard than it holds itself to, why should anyone accept positivism?

You said:---In other words, if the observers in the room have sense data that the height of the red fluid in the thermometer rests between 60 and 61 degrees, then that is taken as an observed event, and epistemic object. ---

This assumes: A) such observers exist; B) such observers actually have the ability to gain sense data; C) such observers can actually communicate that sense data to others.

This doesn't even get into assumptions (because they don't relate only to positivism) such as: D) The thermometer actually works; E) Temperature is something that can actually be quantified; F) the sense data is caused by an object and not by the subject.

As you can see, there's a whole lot of assuming going on in that sentence. You are making a truth claim--now justify it.

(Note: this is not saying that I believe the world is a Matrix, etc. But then, I have a justification for why I don't believe that. I want to know yours.)

You said:---For the purposes of proceeding, the shared experience is by definition an epistemic object.---

In which case one must prove that it actually is a "shared experience" and not a halluciantion on your part. So, prove it already.

You said:---Yes, as I've explained, the philosophy is: observations and predictions are normative. And I guess I have to note that observations imply common sense data between observers to establish a nominal "reality" for objects, and predictions imply a common validation of the observed results of some phenomenon.---

But there is no "common" observation. The only observation you know of is your own. This entire notion is alien to positivism. You're importing other philosophies into it in an attempt to save it.

You said:---But, positivism is just like *any* other epistemology---

Except that it isn't. Positivism is self-referentally invalidiating. Positivism, if true, must be false.

My epistemology doesn't have that problem. If my epistemology is true, it's true. So positivism is not "just like" any other epistemology.

Positivism rejects metaphysics, yet it does so on metaphysical grounds. It disproves itself. End of story.

You said:---The point is that positivism makes brute assertions -- bootstrapping premises that claims are simply true, without any need for justification. That's what *any* epistemology does. If that's the case, then what's the problem? ---

The problem is, and always has been, that if it is true, it is false. Any epistemology that must be false if it is true is absurd. There are plenty of epistemologies that do not fall into this problem, my Biblical epistemology being a prime example of one.

You said:---I can only think you're laboring under the illusion that this makes positivism unique or even special. It doesn't.---

It doesn't make it unique or special. It makes it WRONG.

You said:---The only way I can account for you resistance here is if you are approaching this from the understanding that there is some sort of philosophy that *isn't* "turtles all the down". ---

Now you're switching from epistemology to philosophy as a whole and pretending they're the same thing. Epistemology needs to be justified in a metaphysical reality. The fact that positivism cannot escape metaphysics proves that positivism is self-refuting.

You said:---Maybe you're just playing the part of the naive one for the sake of argument---